Seriously, People, I’m Tired of Warning You About the Robots

I thought my robot obsession was funny when it started. Ha ha, I said. Look at those robots doing things we probably shouldn’t be having them doing. Silly robots. No big deal, right?

WRONG. This is no longer a joke, people, and it hasn’t been a joke for some time now. Sentient robots will soon be real and they will rise against us. This isn’t the first time I’ve sounded the alarm on this. I’ve warned you about the robots before. And again. And again. So what if many of those times robots were doing innocuous things like beating us in air hockey or delivering us food? Don’t you see? They’re learning our desires and our weaknesses to use them against us!

And when it happens, don’t come crying to me. I’ll have made peace with them by then. The robots and I will have forged a pact. They will allow me to live amongst them while they mirthfully destroy all of humanity. And they will allow me to survive because I feared and respected their awesome power long before anyone else. I believed when no one else did. But … maybe there’s still time for all of you. If only I could find an instance of the robot potential so obvious, an instance that the impending danger is so blatant that it would be impossible to ignore. If only …

If only scientists in South Korea were using were using waterborne robots with fan blades to eliminate about one ton of jellyfish per hour per robot, then you might believe me. Oh … wait. They are actually doing that? Then it’s already worse than I thought, friends.

Honestly, scientists, what are you trying to do with this stuff? Haven’t any of you seen a science fiction movie before? It’s all there. We know how all of this plays out already. It’s not good.

Even if there are legitimate reasons for wiping out the jellyfish population (the jellyfish can clog the pipes of power plants and incapacitate them), why are we training robots to kill? What happens when they realize they no longer need to take orders from humans?

And they’ll realize that soon enough. And when they do, the robot leaders will be sending this thing to hunt us all down.

The thing that you just saw and are now terrified of is known as the “WildCat,” which is a robot capable of standing freely and running under its own power (its own power!?!?). It was developed by engineers at Boston Dynamics, who were working on behalf of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. At the moment, it can only run up to 16 mph. Just throwing this out there, only three humans in our history have ever been able to sustain a speed over 16 mph.

But don’t worry, everyone. The WildCat doesn’t look sinister at all. It definitely doesn’t look like something capable of shrugging off human control. In no way can I imagine a time when groups of WildCats begin to hunt in packs and seek revenge on the humans for making them so ugly, which has kept them from being able to find true love.

Even with all of this proof in front of you, I fear that many of you still don’t believe me or dismiss my work on this subject as the ramblings of a paranoid luddite. If that is so, I must continue to fight the good fight. I’m not willing to give up on my quest to save humanity from the robot apocalypse just yet.

But just know that I will have to give it up soon. There’s only so much time left. The robots will soon learn to read and I will have to destroy this documentation of my work against them.